Repentance means the renewal of baptism, an agreement with God to turn over a new leaf. Repentance means reconciliation with the Lord through works of virtue, rather than continuing in our transgressions. Repentance means cleansing the conscience and the deliberate effort to bear all distressing circumstances.
“As the flame blazed up from the altar toward heaven, the angel of the Lord ascended in the flame. Seeing this, Manoah and his wife fell with their faces to the ground. When the angel of the Lord did not show himself again to Manoah and his wife, Manoah realised that it was the angel of the Lord. “We are doomed to die!” he said to his wife. “We have seen God!” (Judges 13:20-22) In my previous article, The Burning Bush, we examined the manifestation of the “Angel of the Lord” or the “Angel of Great Counsel” in the Burning Bush onMount Sinai. As we saw, when this particular ‘angel’ appears, He declares Himself as God, “I am the God of ...
Discernment is a gift of the Holy Spirit, which is given as a prize to those who meticulously observe their conscience, to those who meticulously keep the divine commandments. Discernment is also the precise instrument of the Church, through which it governs its children in the turmoil and tempests of the stormy sea of life. It’s the rudder of its ship, as it were.
Fr. Stanley Harakas It was to the Myrrh-Bearing Women that the news of Christ’s Resurrection was first given. It was to them that Christ first appeared in the flesh. It was to them that the honor fell of announcing the Resurrection. Fr. Stanley Harakas presents a podcast on the Myrrh-Bearing Women. mmyyrrrrh This program is produced in partnership with OCN The Orthodox Christian Network produces a wide variety of multimedia resources for Orthodox Christians and seekers in three languages: English, Greek, and Spanish. It is an agency of the Assembly of Canonical Orthodox Bishops of the United States. Founded nearly 20 years ago as a radio ministry, it continues to produce "Come Receive the Light," a weekly radio show, and has expanded into a variety of ...
MY THOUGHTS ABOUT “OUR THOUGHTS” I went one Sunday to a very small Russian Orthodox parish inWisconsin, in fact like a family parish, in a church built by the priest on his own property. The church was gorgeous, all in wood. The Divine Liturgy was heavenly, so prayerful and contemplative. After the Liturgy, all attending were invited to join the family for their Sunday lunch. The son of the family was reading a spiritual book aloud, just like in monasteries, Orthodox or Catholic, for that matter. They were reading this book. I enjoyed very much the excerpt, bought the book, and read it all. I was really struck by how modern this book was. Of course, this Elder lived in the 20th ...
The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender One should not approach the canons of the Church in the same way as the civil laws since neither are the canons mere legal statements nor does the Church’s legislation serve the principles of penal systems. The purpose of all penal systems is to regulate the social relationships in a way that the rights of one person will not devastate the rights of others. The civil legislator tries to balance the interests of the people in a world full of necessities and self-interest. The canons of the Church, however, aim at helping Christians to liberate themselves from material necessities and eventually become the image of Christ on earth, for the ...
One of the most striking features of Christianity is that it is not culture-based. Judaism is Jewish, the Olympian gods were Greek, Hinduism, Sikhism and Buddhism are Indian, Taoism Chinese, Shintoism Japanese and so on. Whatever it may have become later, through acculturation into various societies, in its origins Christianity was something radically different: a challenge to established patterns that had grown out of the society in which they were formed. This can be seen very clearly in the events after the Crucifixion, which are barely comprehensible in conventional terms. The first is the recognition of Christ’s divinity by the centurion, who, as a Roman, would not have had any interest in the death of a Jewish criminal. Then the disciples, ...
When Moses went to approach the bush in flames, he had to free himself of his footwear. But we often go to pray to God without freeing ourselves of our wicked thoughts.
The Wedding at Cana In the Gospel of John, we read that Christ attended a wedding in Cana of Galilee along with His disciples, and that His Mother was there too. When the wine gave out, she asked Him to do a public miracle, openly manifesting to all that He was the Messiah. He refused, calling her rather formally “Madam” rather than the usual “Mother” (the Greek reads, gynē, “woman”, but this has a different and more disrespectful feel in English than it does in the original), and asking what this problem had to do with them. “My hour,” He explained, “has not yet come.” She responded by telling the waiters serving the wedding feast, “Whatever He says to you, ...
Whenever a loved one dies, children should be told immediately in the most direct manner possible. From when they’re told until the time they accept the death, children react to the loss of a loved one by going through four necessary stages of grief, which are very similar to the five corresponding stages in adults (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance). In particular, the first stage of grief in children is completed through understanding the fact of loss. The second stage begins with processing grief through contact with the pain caused by the loss and the expression of emotions. In the third, an internal, symbolic contact with the departed person is created, so that the memory of them can be preserved. And ...
Temptations are trials that come to us from the devil and his servants, that is, wicked people. God allows temptations to come to us, in order to test our love for Him (Deut. 8, 2). To test our obedience (ibid) to test whether we desire profit (Job, 1, 9-12). It’s a fact that temptations always correspond to weaknesses in human nature. God gives harsher temptations to those who are strong in the faith so that they can progress in sanctity and become worthy of greater crowns. To those who are weak in the faith and in patience, Divine Providence gives easier temptations, so that they can overcome them and not despair.
She is the most well-known and beloved female saint in Ireland, Saint Brigid of Kildare was born in the fifth century (around 450—during that time when all of Christendom was still unified) right on the heels of Saint Patrick, that tireless bishop who came to love and believe in the people of Ireland. Together, Saints Patrick and Brigid made a mighty impact, spreading Christianity like wildfire to a pagan people who were open and ready to learn of Christ’s salvation. Though there are many varied accounts of her life, all written after her death, the impression she made on the Irish land is undisputed, and the spirit of Saint Brigid comes across strongly in each of them. Even today, her ...
Father Roman Braga Father Roman Braga was born on April 2, 1922 in Bessarabia in a village named Condrita. He was the last of the seven children of Cosma and Maria Braga. He grew up in an Orthodox environment, raised by a devout Orthodox mother and in the close proximity of the Monastery of Condrita. During his formative years, he had the living example of his mother who imprinted on her children the virtues of Christian life. Many times he remembered how his mother attended long church services at the monastery and how sleepy and tired he was, but always he was at his mother’s side. These formative years laid the foundation for the strict discipline of his entire life ...
His Eminence Metropolitan Archbishop Sotirios visited the Communities of Victoria, Nanaimo, Kamloops, Penticton and Vancouver. He was accompanied by the Reverend Fathers E. Aravantinos, K. Kaltsidis, C. Economos and T. Prattas. All four priests are graduates of the Toronto Orthodox Theological Academy; young, vibrant, full of life, doing excellent work in their Communities, especially regarding youth matters. The Metropolitan and all of the Priests, from Friday of the Life-Giving Font on April 21st until Wednesday April 26th, celebrated five Divine Liturgies and one Great Vespers. The joy of the Communities was the participation of the faithful Christians in the Divine Liturgies and the Vespers service. Especially at the smaller Communities, their joy was in seeing the Metropolitan and the Priests conducting the Divine Liturgies ...
In the end, it’s a whole art to learn to listen to other people. You might say that communication is seventy per cent listening, rather than talking, because talking isn’t always what the other person wants from you. Often enough, you don’t need to say anything, just listen, and the other person will be happy that you’re doing so.
The ability to forgive others depends on how honest we are with ourselves. ‘The greatest form of knowledge to which you can attain’, says Saint Clement the Alexandrian, ‘is to know yourself’. If you know yourself, you know nature, the limits and the possibilities of your existence and you can put yourself on a proper footing with God, your neighbour and yourself. It’s impossible to arrive at forgiveness unless we’re aware of the personal sinfulness lurking within us. It’s impossible to attain transfiguration without awareness of our personal enslavement to the passions. Recognition of our sickness isn’t a psychological weakness, but our decision to understand that: ‘all have sinned, and fallen short of the glory of God, being justified freely ...
Icon of Moses and the burning bush “If you believed Moses, you would believe me; for he wrote of me" (John 5:46) The most famous theophany in the Old Testament is the appearance of God to Moses in the burning bush (Exodus 3:1-5): “Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the Lord appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, "I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush ...
The whole series can be read here: The Theology of Gender Since physical abuse of women and children was not a rare phenomenon for that era, when St. Basil disqualifies “abuse” as a cause for divorce, he does not refer to women subjected to severe violence. The Church Fathers did not ignore that reality is sometimes hard and far from ideal. The ideal situation is always stressed as the goal for all Christians. However, taking into consideration the real situation, the canons foresee cases in which a marriage is not only destroyed in its essence, but continued cohabitation might be dangerous to one of the spouses’ life. Canon 35 of St. Basil offers the possibility that the woman may leave her ...
Humility, in an inexplicable manner, elevates us above created things and preserves the Grace of God in our lives. So let’s bear in mind the wise warning which says: ‘The devil doesn’t eat and doesn’t drink, so in a sense that makes him the greatest ascetic. But it doesn’t make him any less the devil’. Humility is the only weapon that defeats the devil, the necessary condition for salvation, the mystical divine force which gathers everyone into it. Where there is humility, there also is the glory of God. The eye of the flower of the soul blossoms into a plant that never fades.
Flatterers are our greatest enemies. They blind us and don’t allow us to see our many faults. So they make it difficult for us to progress to perfection, especially if we’re selfish and don’t look ahead. This is why we shouldn’t listen to those who flatter us and should avoid them. Pity those who are surrounded by flatterers.
